Lotsa Little bits, vol. 24

ITEM:  Well, we had an adventure already this morning, but let me save that for the end (because it's the best part...)

ITEM:  Last night, a certain Beagle decided to post on my caps blog.  Be sure to check that out!

ITEM:  BREAKING UPDATE:  Asiana airlines is suing the TV station who named the crashed plane's crew as Ho Lee Fuk, Et. Al.  KTVU is graciously blaming everything on a summer intern.  In San Fran, I think I can believe it.  After all, they've sent Pelosi to Congress 11 times.


ITEM:  I don't know if this counts for an AH-CRAP award, but... Brazillian farmer Joao Maria de Souza, 45, was peacefully dreaming in his bed when he was crushed by a one-ton cow.  Before you think this is a "fat wife" joke, apparently in the area he lives, a lot of farm houses are butted right up against the hills on which cows, apparently, graze.  Bosse inadvertently walked out on the roof, and soon found herself making manburger patty.  This isn't the only time falling cattle have hit this community.  In the last three years, one cow landed in a thankfully untenanted room; in the other, the animal just missed a baby and a small child.  I'm thinking the cocept of putting a fence on the roof might be the way to go...

ITEM:  I don't have all the Aussie hockey boxes yet, but I can give you some highlights.  Adelaide had a good time this weekend- it was their turn to demolish Canberra.  Saturday, they out shot the Knights 43-13 en route to a 6-0 win.  Greg Oddy got the hat in front of 378 screaming fans.  On Sunday, they registered an 8-2 win on which I have yet no other details.

Perth split their weekend out east;  Dominic Osmun and Pier-Oliver Coitner had their usual two goals apiece, but it took Jayson Chalker scoring in the NINTH shootout round to give Newcastle a 6-5 win in Saturday's game.  Sunday, though Perth scored 6 times on just 18 shots to down Sydney's Ice Dogs 6-4.

Not a good weekend in Sydney, as their other team, the Bears, got cold-cocked twice.  It was Melbourne's teams taking their turns here; in Saturday's game, the Mustangs won 5-2.  In Sunday's game the Ice, entering the third period leading just 4-3, out shot the Bears 21-5 in the period and scored thrice to rout the Bears 7-3.

This tightened up the league race considerably; there's now just an 8 point spread between first place Newcastle (10-4-3, 36 pts.) and sixth-place Adelaide (7-8-5, 28).

ITEM:  How about another amusing (at least to me) BBC headline?

"Dead soldiers"?  Zombies served with the Territorial Army?  No, the soldiers who got killed were with the TA.  Perhaps we might want to try "Slain Soldiers Served In The TA", before the zombie apocalypse comes to Jolly Ol', huh?

ITEM:  I hereby nominate two more companies to win AH-CRAPs.  First, and not surprisingly, PETA.  "OMG, Martin hates animals!"  No, no.  I had sent a snarky e-mail to these lovely people a while back for some act of douche-canoery (a word?) a while back, and last week they decided it meant I wanted to be on their mailing list.  So I tried the e-mail link for unsubscribing.  Which took me to a page that went to great lengths to explain how great they were, and how evil I am for eating at McDonalds, but no unsubscribe.  So I looked around and found their "contact us" link.  On that page, they actually had a "unsubscribe or subscribe" link.  Now we're getting somewhere!  So I went to that page and guess what?  More about how great they are, and the many ways to join, buy merchandise, donate, etc.- but NOT ONE WORD about unsubscribing.  Skippy, don't take this wrong, but you see why I hate liberal organizations?

The other prize goes to Microsoft's help center.  I had annoying minor computer problem and tried to contact them for help.  This was an irritatingly long story that I won't bore you with, but... step one: go to Microsoft for a problem with their internet explorer.  Step two: fight your way to a site that is supposed to be on the way to live chat with a tech.  Step three- you are required to hit a link to open an ActiveX plug in so you can talk to them.  Step four- click okay, only to get a bar saying, "Internet Explorer blocked an Active X plug-in from opening."  So the company that services IE wants me, in order to contact them, to open a plug in that IE won't let me open.  Are these guys run by Blogger?


ITEM:  I get Chuck Sheppard's News Of The Weird e-mailed to me every Sunday (no, that's not where I get my material- half the time I've already seen the stories elsewhere).  This Sunday I got the delightfully PC story of a hospital in a gang-lousy area of Chicago- Roseland Community Hospital- that despite a surplus of vics sent there by the area's gang fighting, was threatening to close down due to lack of funding.  Not surprisingly, the community gathered to try to keep it open.  One of those "community leaders" speaking out was one Don Acklin, co-founder of the Black Disciples gang.  His reasoning was twofold.  Part one, "It's bad enough we're out here harming each other."  Yes, he said that.  Second, if the hospital closed, it would be tantamount to "genocide" because of the innocent bystanders routinely caught in the crossfire.

Let me open my response to Mr. Acklin with this:

How about you try STOP SHOOTING PEOPLE!!!  Your gang, I'm afraid, doesn't qualify as a "necessary service to the community"; the deaths your idiotic gang crap causes are NOT socially acceptable behavior.  And Skippy, I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull the politics card again- in researching this story, I confirmed it in a glowing article published by "Liberals Unite:  The 24-hour news magazine for discerning liberals."  Honest. To. God. 

From Merriam-Webster:  Discerning: showing insight and understanding : discriminating

How discerning, then is it, to praise the people that cause the problem for trying to keep in business the people who clean up their messes?

ITEM:  Now it's time for the adventure part of our story.

The weather the next few days is forecast to be "Hothouse sauna with periods of destructive storms."  Thus it was, I figured that if me and the Booogle were going to get a walk in, it would have to be waaay early.  At 5:30 AM, it was 70 degrees with "can I have a snorkel" humidity, but we set bravely off.

 

 Yes, still that dark.  But off we went.  The only thing I was really worried about was that, with a lot of fog as we moved south, this was the time of day the skunks like to gad about.

Then Scrappy starts whining near a hole he's sniffing out.  I wish I could say I was concerned, but I was being distracted by the third shift mosquitoes.

If you look at the left side of the road, just in the shadows, you'll see the glow of little eyes.  Wish I had seen them.

Right about here, Scrappy takes off to chase something.  It took me a second to focus... there was not one, but TWO skunks directly ahead of us.  The one must have been that little set of eyes we looked at earlier.  He was about 30 feet ahead of us, and after first heading dead for us (as I desperately tried to backpedal while Scrappy pulled TOWARDS them), he turned off and made a b-line for the fog on our left.  The other one was about fifty feet in front of us, and he had tail up and ready to fire.  When he saw we were retreating, he made up the trail as fast as his clumsy little legs could take him.

Scrappy wanted them bad.  He drug me up the trail towards the fast retreating artilleryman, sniffing furiously as I reeled in his leash and kept it short the remainder of the walk.

Slightly time-lapse "Scrappy-Flash"

Did I mention fog?

A lot of redbirds were out.

Right about this point, we were in the woods, and I had a mosquito that was wearing an outboard motor dive bombing me on the right.  I was ready to be done, and the middle exit to the woods was just ahead.  I wasn't worried, though; I never see skunks in the woods itself.

All of the sudden, about thirty feet ahead, a skunk dashed across the trail and into the brush approximatley where you see above.  After mentioning it to the Lord a bit loudly, we ever-so-slowly made our way to the exit, and I made a command decision that we would cut across the wide open spaces of the soccer field to prevent any more surprises.

Was it dewey?  Yes.  Did I care?  Nope.

Was it foggy?  I thought those two people were a deer.

Finally we arrive home without further incident, with Scrappy thinking it a well worth while trip, and me, not so much.

Now, the fungi are coming to us!  Two slime molds near the door.

Looks like someone barfed eggs, don't it?